Tonight at the Royal Opera House, singers belt tweets

ByAmy FarnsworthAugust 11, 2009

The Royal Opera House in London typically hosts performances of classical operas such as Richard Wagner's "Das Rheingold," left, and Georges Bizet's "Carmen." Tonight, however, they will be showcasing lyrical snippets from the world's first Twitter opera.

The Royal Opera House in London typically hosts performances of classical operas such as "The Magic Flute" and "Carmen."

But tonight, singers at the prestigious performance venue will take center stage and belt lyrical tweets from the world's first Twitter opera.

The lines of the libretto, written using a maximum of 140 characters, are being entirely composed by Twitter users @YourOpera, and will be set to music by composer Helen Porter. (All of the lines can be viewed on the Royal Opera House's blog.)

Alison Duthie, a spokeswoman for the Royal Opera House, hopes the micro-blogging experiment will encourage people to learn more about opera.

"It's the people's opera, and the perfect way for everyone to become involved with the inventiveness of opera as the ultimate form of storytelling," she says.

But the unique opera isn't catching on with everyone. In an interview with the London Evening Standard, Jeremy Pound, BBC Music Magazine's deputy editor said, "It was an accident waiting to happen. Whenever there is a new fad, you know that someone in the art world is going to grab it by the horns." He cautions that the Royal Opera House "should be careful that it doesn't overtake the serious stuff they do."

Currently, the Royal Opera House twitter feed has 774 followers. Already, hundreds of operatic tweets, written in English, have been added to the flourishing Twitter opera, which features a storyline centered around "tweeting" birds who kidnap a man as well as a biochemist seeking to make a potion that will let people talk to birds.

Here's a few lines from the Twitter opera thus far:

William awakens, and hears the tell-tale tap-tap tap of someone outside his room twittering on their phone

And with that he climbed a nearby tree and resolved to dwell amongst the leaves for the rest of his days

Hans (sword in hand, lest you forget): "how can I reach my love in a tower so high? If I was a bird, then I could fly. We aren’t meant to be apart? Oh my breaking heart”

The ginger cat sings an aria urging people never to stop feeding the pigeons, for they are his food

––

Will you contribute lines to the world's first Twitter opera? Tell us below or share your thoughts with us on Twitter.